The story of Nze Ar and Somba Mar

The following first-person accounts come from two children assisted by Fund grantee Bureau pour le Volontariat au Service de l’Enfance et de la Santé (BVES), which operates in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).  Thanks to efforts by the international community and local organizations like BVES, over 18,000 child soldiers in the DRC have been released and demobilized since 2002.  Nearly 6 percent of these (1,050) were released as a result of BVES intervening with commanders and negotiating releases.

Nze Ar  (not his real name)
In his own words (translated from French):

“I was enlisted into the army (RCD/Goma) on May 20, 2000. After a military training that lasted two months in Kitutu/Mwenga, I was sent to Kakolokelwa to serve in the military unit of Commander Dumu.  After three months, I escaped and I went to hide in my village. But my father and my mother could not take care of me; I am the sixth of nine children.  After third grade, I could no longer afford to go to school.

In June 2002, our village was attacked by the Mudundu 40 (a rebel group) who took all of the children in our village aged eight to eighteen for their militia.  They took us to Ngweshe/Walungu to initiate us into their army. They taught us the techniques of combat and taught us about the magical amulets that would protect us.

We fought several times against the Rwandan army and against the Mai Mai militia.  Other kids died from illness, snake and insect bites, and enemy fire.  I, because I was young and very well trained, was chosen as “chief of escort” for the commander.  I cannot give you the commander’s name because I am too scared.  He also chose me to guard his magical amulets.

In November 2002, we were transferred to the Ruzizi area.  I received an additional week’s worth of training. During these training sessions, they would send me to get water five kilometers away in the bush, totally naked, and at midnight.  We met devils who would speak to us.  We would bring back the water in banana tree leaves to drink the day of the fight.  I suffered terribly; thank God I survived. 

On December 22, 2002, BVES came to our military camp, and, as a result of the awareness session, my seventeen friends and I were released and we went to the BVES reintegration center.  There, I received psychological and social support for three months, but the magic in my blood remained.

BVES found a family for me in Bukavu.  I couldn’t go back to my village, or else I would have been re-recruited into another army.  I was able to go to school in Bukavu.

Unfortunately, in July 2003, as I was taking a walk, my former commander took a hold of me and forced me to go the private militia in Bukavu that was preparing a new war.  I couldn’t escape, and I thought that life was very disappointing.  But, once again, by chance I was in a military camp close to a city where BVES was and when BVES came to visit, they convinced the commanders to release all the children. I was saved. That was in February 2004.

As soon as I arrived in the reintegration center, BVES found me a family in Bukavu, and the school accepted me again. So I was able to attend the same school again as a result of BVES’s help.  I am very lucky.  I plan to continue my studies and go to university.

Somba Mar (not her real name)
In her own words (translated from French):

I was born in 1989 in Walungu, the youngest of six children. Two boys and four girls. In 2001, my father was killed by Rwandan soldiers while he was on his way to tend his fields. My mother was raped and beaten by my fathers’ murderers. My oldest brother was killed in a motorbike accident three months later.

Insecurity ran high in our village.  The Mudundu 40 (a rebel militia) was coming both day and night to abduct girls.  In June 2001, the Mudundu 40 grabbed me and six other girls in Mushinga.  That night, we were victims of sexual violence. We cried and screamed, but no one listened, not even God. The following morning, we were asked to choose between death and the army. We all said yes for the army.

After three months, four girls including me were pregnant.  The commanders brought a midwife to the camp; she was a witch brought there to provoke an abortion with sour substances and fingers in our genitals.  Two of the girls died as a result of blood loss.  I came very close to death, but thank God, by the third day, the blood had stopped though it was still painful.  After nine months of military sexual servitude, one day I was listening to a radio broadcast run by BVES that called on military leaders to release the children in their ranks. I decided to run away and to hide with an old woman in the village.  I could not go to the city (Bukavu) because of military roadblocks. The old woman got in touch with a local order of religious sisters who agreed to help me and they successfully got me back in school.

After a year, the mother superior was transferred elsewhere and the sisters’ financial support disappeared.  So [without much choice,] I decided to reenlist in the military, disappointed by life. I went to the local police of the RCD/Goma (a military group) in Sept 2002.  I suffered in this police group as much as I suffered with the Mudundu 40. My suffering is difficult to explain . . .

Then, a local human rights defender I met advised me to run away to find refuge in the BVES center in Bukavu.  BVES welcomed me, gave me clothes, medical care, and after three months, I was reunified with my sister.  I went back to school.  Thanks to BVES financial support, I am now in my sixth year of school and I am working hard to get my diploma. I want to go to the university one day to become a lawyer defending children and women’s rights around the world. 

>> Read more about BVES' frontline work defending children’s rights in war zones